1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in a voice or sound unit which is capable of producing sounds, for example, of the type associated with toys and the like. In particular, the present invention relates to improvements in both the arrangement of component parts and the structural design of the parts to provide ease of manufacturing, improved sound quality and a new form of voice unit highly adaptable to numerous applications.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Phonographs and other forms of sound producing devices can be broadly described as voice units and have found numerous applications particularly in the field of toys. Voice units have been utilized in various forms of talking dolls, music boxes, games, etc. Early examples of the use of mechanically actuated voice units can be found in the Franklin U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,979,067, Shulman 1,837,076 and Hunter 1,485,137.
In the quest to provide high fidelity sound reproduction with relatively inexpensive parts, various components of voice units have been subject to considerable design efforts. For example, various mechanical arrangements have been utilized for the release of stored energy usually from a source such as a spring. Examples of these arrangements can be found in the Poppe U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,494,802, folk 1,503,787, Grubman 1,979,068 and Marshall 3,568,802. Since the quality of sound reproduction is directly related to the speaker cone, efforts have been made to provide various improved speaker cone configurations and mounting arrangements within the voice unit's housing such as the Chang U.S. Pat. No. 3,547,448. In addition, various forms of spring biased tone arms have been suggested and utilized in the prior art such as the tone arm disclosed in the Scoparino U.S. Pat. No. 3,235,266.
Recently, talking dolls have enjoyed considerable commercial success by employing a multi-speech voice unit that is activated by a pull string. Basically, this comprises the use of a multi-spirally tracked record on a spring driven turntable. Multi-track records have been known in the prior art for a considerable period of time, for example, in the records disclosed in the Berliner U.S. Pat. Nos. 936,976, Abramson 2,703,241, Winchell 3,110,501, Haltenhof 2,287,240, and Michetti 3,332,690. Various examples of multi-speech voice units can be found such as the Greenlee, Jr. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,325,916, Weld 2,680,150 and Ryan 3,017,187 and 3,082,006.
Besides the use of spirally grooved records, the prior art has also resorted to tapes and rotating drums that are frequently driven by either mechanical means or electrical motors such as the Freeman et al U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,239,229 and the Poylo et al 2,947,978.
Basically, the prior art has experienced some limited success in providing mechanically actuated voice units having a relatively limited vocabulary. However, the provision of a compact, relatively inexpensive voice unit having a relatively large number of sentences that are reproducible in a distortionfree manner has eluded the prior art to date.